Lucius Vorenus, what means "close" in such a context? Romanians are much more different, we also share religion and a lot of other traditions, but "from outside" we saw them as the same people, do you want to offer you now bookish citations or what?

No, of course not, I've had enough citations and quotations in my life(I'm professional historian), I'm kind a sick of it. I'm interested to know how you see those similarities and intended to motivate you with my post . No hard feelings.

That's because I know Serbs well, we speak almost the same language and I was bit confused by your constatation.

No, of course not, I've had enough citations and quotations in my life(I'm professional historian), I'm kind a sick of it. I'm interested to know how you see those similarities and intended to motivate you with my post . No hard feelings.

That's because I know Serbs well, we speak almost the same language and I was bit confused by your constatation.

I have also known Bulgarians and Serbs face-to-face and I know very well that they are different. Most Serbs have crescent-moon like side faces whilst most Bulgarians have pumpkin-like faces. I was talking about historical perception.

^Re: pumpkin-like faces, it was not an insult, God forbids, perhaps they also have very big brains. I referred to the fact that they have averagely bigger heads than the average Romanian, so when I asked someone looking as such "Have you Bulgarian ancestry?", most of the time the answer was "Yes!".

To be honest, I believe in a Balkan federation where ethnic and religious conflicts are past. Not an easy thing, but if achievable it would result an incredibly strong union with a great potential. Balkans has completely been trashed by ethnic, religious and political conflicts. The first step for such an attempt would be TRUST. I believe Greece and Bulgaria have made a huuuuuge step, considering their past. I don't know how it happened, against all odds, it just flowed that way.

^Re: pumpkin-like faces, it was not an insult, God forbids, perhaps they also have very big brains. I referred to the fact that they have averagely bigger heads than the average Romanian, so when I asked someone looking as such "Have you Bulgarian ancestry?", most of the time the answer was "Yes!".

I know you didn't want to insult, but the words you picked were surely funny.

Tito urged only Bulgaria to form Federation with Yugoslavia. Albania was certainly not in his plan, since it took side with Soviets after great conflict Tito - Stallin in 1948.

There were also serious plans on federation with Albania, Milovan Djilas writes about it in his book, Susreti sa Staljinom (Meetings with Stalin? or what is its english title).
Bulgaria also sided with the SU in the Soviet-Yugoslav split, no? Both the Yugoslav-Bulgarian and the Yugoslav-Albanian federation were pre-split plans.

To be honest, I believe in a Balkan federation where ethnic and religious conflicts are past. Not an easy thing, but if achievable it would result an incredibly strong union with a great potential. Balkans has completely been trashed by ethnic, religious and political conflicts. The first step for such an attempt would be TRUST. I believe Greece and Bulgaria have made a huuuuuge step, considering their past. I don't know how it happened, against all odds, it just flowed that way.

If we all reach such a state, why a Balkan federation and not a Mondial Federation, ruled by the wiser of the wisest of our world?

^Re: pumpkin-like faces, it was not an insult, God forbids, perhaps they also have very big brains. I referred to the fact that they have averagely bigger heads than the average Romanian, so when I asked someone looking as such "Have you Bulgarian ancestry?", most of the time the answer was "Yes!".

I wonder how you see us here? Apple -like faces or banana-like faces? Maybe you think we're trolls or gremlins?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midas

To be honest, I believe in a Balkan federation where ethnic and religious conflicts are past. Not an easy thing, but if achievable it would result an incredibly strong union with a great potential. Balkans has completely been trashed by ethnic, religious and political conflicts. The first step for such an attempt would be TRUST. I believe Greece and Bulgaria have made a huuuuuge step, considering their past. I don't know how it happened, against all odds, it just flowed that way.

Ethnic and religious conflicts are not yet past unfortunately. Tensions are pretty high on Kosovo, but I believe that Union between lets say Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia could be possible. We all speak same language and have same heritage. As far as Bulgarians and Romanians are concerned, I'm not sure that such connections exist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tulun

There were also serious plans on federation with Albania, Milovan Djilas writes about it in his book, Susreti sa Staljinom (Meetings with Stalin? or what is its english title).
Bulgaria also sided with the SU in the Soviet-Yugoslav split, no? Both the Yugoslav-Bulgarian and the Yugoslav-Albanian federation were pre-split plans.

Of course, but Albanians were always enemies of Yugoslavia, I haven't red the book so I can't tell more, but I know without any doubt that the federation thing with Bulgaria went pretty far. With Albania, I'm not so sure.

In Romania there were a lot of Pleshev, Gantchev, Stanchev etc. who are now Pleşu, Ganciu, Stanciu etc., my own wife's ancestors were Limonkov, later changed to Limoncu and later to a Romanian family name based on father's baptismal name, so if someone imagines that Bulgarians are exotic here, certainly errs, in fact we are mixed a lot.